What's Happening in Space Policy August 8-26, 2016

Here is our list of space policy events for the next THREE weeks, August 8-26, 2016, and any insight we can offer about them.  The House and Senate are in recess until September 6.

During the Weeks

It may be the dog days of August, but after a one-week respite, there’s a lot happening, starting with the Small Satellite Conference in Utah.  It actually began yesterday with a 2-day pre-conference workshop that is being livestreamed.  It’s not clear from the meeting’s website whether the Monday-Thursday sessions also will be available that way.  Lots of creative ideas will be discussed, no doubt, at this, its 30th anniversary. Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) from Space News is on site tweeting if there’s no livestream or you don’t have time to listen in.

Last week we laid out all the meetings through August 19 that we knew about at the time.  They are all still posted on our Events of Interest list and in the summary below.  In this section, we will focus on August 22-26, a week that wasn’t included last time.

At the top of the list is the scheduled return to flight of Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket on August 22 from Wallops Island, VA.  It’s a daytime launch (5:59 pm ET) so won’t be as visible from surrounding areas as the night launches, but still could be viewable from the D.C. area (depending on the weather).  Orbital ATK often posts maps of where to look and we will add links to them to our calendar entry when they’re available.  As anyone who follows space launches knows, plans can always change for technical or weather reasons.  We’ll update our calendar entry with any news we get.  (Orbital ATK will discuss its 2Q 2016 financial results this Wednesday; more information may be provided at that time.) This is the first flight of the re-engined Antares (now using new Russian RD-181s instead of refurbished Russian NK-33/AJ26s) following the October 28, 2014 failure.  Orbital ATK has launched two Cygnus cargo spacecraft on United Launch Alliance Atlas V rockets in the meantime.  They were designated OA-4 and OA-6; this one is OA-5 and, as one may guess, was originally intended to launch in between those two, but was delayed.

If the Small Satellite Conference piques your curiosity with all those new ideas, another place to hear fresh views is the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) symposium.  It will be held August 23-25 in Raleigh, NC and will be livestreamed.

On August 24, the Maryland Space Business Roundtable (MSBR) is hosting a luncheon with Rep. Chris Van Hollen that may be particularly interesting. He is widely expected to succeed Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who is retiring at the end of this year.  Van Hollen won the Democratic primary (against Rep. Donna Edwards) earlier this year.  He faces Republican Kathy Szeliga in November, but Democrats have held both Maryland Senate seats since 1986 and therefore is expected to win.  His views on the space program are not well known, so this will give the space community an opportunity to hear directly from him.  Mikulski is one of NASA’s biggest supporters in Congress, especially for earth science and other programs executed at Goddard Space Flight Center, so the extent to which her successor shares those views is important.   Whatever his views, though, he’ll be a freshman in a system that thrives on seniority and it will take some time before he can attain Mikulski’s influence, especially on the all-important Senate Appropriations Committee. She chaired the committee when Democrats controlled the Senate and is now the top Democrat there.  (For those interested in such matters, usually the highest ranking committee or subcommittee member of the party that is not in power is referred to as the “ranking member.”  On Senate Appropriations, though, it has become common to designate that person as the “vice chairman” or “vice chairwoman” in a nod to bipartisanship, so Mikulski is currently vice chairwoman of the committee.)

Those and other events we know about as of Sunday (August 7) morning are shown below.  Check back throughout the weeks for events that we learn about later and add to the Events of Interest list.

Saturday-Thursday, August 6-11

• 30th Small Satellite Conference (USU/AIAA), Utah State University, Logan, Utah

Monday-Tuesday, August 8-9

• NASA Advisory Council Heliophysics Subcommittee, NASA HQ, Washington, DC (WebEx/telecon)

Tuesday, August 9

• ISU-DC Space Cafe Featuring the European Union’s Jean-Luc Bald, Brixton, 901 U Street, NW, Washington, DC, 7:00 pm ET

Wednesday, August 10

• CSF Breakfast Featuring Cass Sunstein, Army Navy Club, Washington, DC, 9:00 am ET
• Orbital ATK Discusses 2Q 2016 Financial Results, virtual, 9:00 am ET

Thursday-Friday, August 11-12

• NASA Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG), Little America-FLAGSTAFF, Flagstaff, AZ

Monday, August 15

• NASA Press Conference to Preview Upcoming Spacewalk, Johnson Space Center, TX, 2:00 pm ET (1:00 pm Central), watch on NASA TV

Tuesday-Wednesday, August 16-17

• Space Technology & Investment Forum, JW Marriott, San Francisco, CA

Tuesday-Thursday, August 16-18

• National Academies Cmte to Review NASA’s Planetary Science Division’s Restructured R&A Program, Keck Center, 500 5th Street, NW, Washington, DC
• Space and Missile Defense Symposium, Von Braun Center, Huntsville, AL

Thursday, August 18

• Satellite Financing Conference, JW Marriott, San Francisco, CA, 8:00 am – 5:00 pm Pacific Daylight Time

Friday, August 19

• ISS Spacewalk to Install International Docking Adapter, earth orbit, 8:05 am ET (NASA TV coverage begins 6:30 am ET)

Monday, August 22

• Orbital ATK Antares Rocket Return to Flight, Wallops Island, VA, 5:59 pm ET

Tuesday-Thursday, August 23-25

• NIAC 2016 Symposium, Raleigh, NC

Wednesday, August 24

• MSBR Luncheon Featuring Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Martin’s Crosswinds, Greenbelt, MD, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm ET

 

Note:  This article was updated to add the August 19 spacewalk and the preview press conference on August 15.  It was later corrected with the name of Van Hollen’s Republican opponent, who is Kathy Szeliga, not Katie McGinty.